


gilt edges, traitor hearts

by noxes



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, DISCLAIMER: MONS IS NOT ACCEPTING AHIT QUESTIONS AT THIS TIME, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Mer Au (Credit to MonsterMonsoon), Parental Instinct, Platonic Cuddling, Protectiveness, Stabbing, Swearing, dumbass doesn't realize he's a dad, headcanons everywhereee, ok yeah this is super cuddly i am not sorry, only a lil bit, please do not bother them, probably ooc moonjumper, they gave me permission to post this, this gets rly soft at the end ngl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23232664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxes/pseuds/noxes
Summary: Bow is not very good at being a mermaid.Case in point: when hunters approach, looking for an easy catch, she doesn't know how to hide herself in time.Moonjumper is not ready to lose Bow, nor for the realization that she means far more to him than he's been willing to admit to anyone, including himself. Unfortunately, he may have to come to terms with both.
Relationships: Bow Kid & Moonjumper (A Hat in Time), Cooking Cat & Bow Kid, Cooking Cat & The Conductor, Hat Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 113





	1. price of life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MonsterMonsoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterMonsoon/gifts).



> this monster of a fic was done for my friend monstermonsoon, who made the mer au! unfortunately, they are no longer interested in ahit, as far as i know, but they gave me permission to post this fic with their blessing. please be nice and don't bombard them with questions! if you have any questions or just want to talk about the fic, my tumblr is abyssal-glory. come talk to me there!
> 
> yeah this is that mj-figures-out-he's-a-dad fic

The hunters are terrifyingly quiet. 

Most people who come to fish in these waters talk and laugh and curse loudly, and their boats’ noisy wakes send ripples of barely-perceptible activity through the sea. Few rarely come to fish here, but when they do, their presence frightens off any mer that may come close. 

These people are silent. Their boat is built to slice through the water with as little disturbance as possible. Their engine is muffled. They do not speak, faces set in grim scowls—though there is a certain measure of excitement there, as well. 

It’s not every day that one gets a chance to hunt some of the most dangerous, elusive prey the world has to offer.

A rich man might pay upwards of several million dollars for a single merperson, dead  _ or _ alive. Taxidermists and chefs generally favored the dead, while scientists and collectors preferred them alive; not that it mattered, they all paid the same. If the hunters could get a mer alive, bully for them, but if they had to use the weapons glinting wickedly in the light of the silvery moon, that’d be no problem. It’s business, after all.

The hunter in charge of navigating them to the correct area stares at the sea, then at the stars for a long, tense moment, then suddenly raises a hand and signals them to stop. Another man nods and silently reaches back to cut the motor. They all know not to make a sound; this operation  _ must _ go off without a hitch if they want to profit at all, and the hearing of an adult mer can reach very far indeed.

The leader—the biggest one of the group—signals to the others to pass out the weapons.

He takes a moment to admire his own as he takes it from his comrade. A beautiful, sleek black barrel, with a grip to lean it against his shoulder and a long, silver harpoon gleaming at the business end. Running a finger along the jagged edge, he smiles as a trickle of blood drops onto the deck, gleaming in the light of the full moon.

Nodding to the rest of his crew, he shifts the gun to his shoulder, leans over the edge, and holds the point just above the water. The others do the same.

The joy of the hunt buzzes through his veins. He can already feel the bills sliding against his palm.

~ ~ ~

Bow grunts, vision blurring suddenly as every nerve in her body goes into shock. The afterimage of the light glancing off the harpoon’s shaft still shivers behind her eyelids, but when she opens her eyes things have gone weird and floaty. And not the underwater kind of floaty.

A thin red tendril drifts lazily in front of her face. 

Bow seizes up and makes an involuntary noise as a sudden hot spike of pain slams into her chest like a hot poker ramming through it and her hand jumps automatically to a spot just under her arm, right along her ribcage, to the short, deep gash there. 

Very deep. 

The harpoon did not gore her like she had originally feared, which is good. Less good is the impossibly deep, ragged line the thing had sliced along her ribcage, splitting the skin open like wet paper. She can feel her pulse beating in it, feels it force more blood through her veins and out through the wound, spurting out of her in gouts that turns the water around her a cloudy pink.

The ocean holds still for a moment, incredibly. The water stops rippling, the sand stops shifting, the kelp holds its collective breath. 

Bow lifts her head and stares blankly at the seabed where she knows her friends are hidden. 

“Help,” she chokes. 

The moment snaps finely in two, and all hell breaks loose. 


	2. scratch and splinter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Moonjumper employs some creative methods to gently chastise the hunters, and Bow bleeds a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im thinkin im gonna release these every two days maybe since the fic is already finished
> 
> also MONSTER CHAPTER to make up for that piddly little short one

The seabed explodes like an underground bomb went off. Merpeople shoot in every direction. Most of them dive for Bow, hands reaching out to catch her, support her against one tail or another, pressing against the wound, raising clamoring voices. 

An unholy shriek cuts through them all. All together, like somebody’s commanding them, they turn and watch what looks like a demon sent straight from the pits of hell fling himself from the ground and directly at the hunters. 

The mers watch in stunned silence, save one. “No,” Bow mutters, slurring like a drunk and already well on her way to delirium. “No, no, MJ, don’t, don’ hurt ‘em…”

Of course Moonjumper hears her, but he does not care, is long past caring. Not CC, not Snatcher, not even his own pup could stop him  _ now. _

The hunters are high above them, but Moonjumper is fast, closing the distance in seconds. He aims himself towards the bottom of the boat, the sleek shape blocking out the sun, looks like he’s going to ram it (“what is he doing, he’s not  _ nearly _ big enough to-“ CC gasps)—but he does not. 

At the very last second before he reaches the surface, Moonjumper flips himself around so the underside of his tail is aimed at the underside of the boat—and his momentum carries him right into it. 

The hunters yell in surprise when the ship jumps in the water, hit by some great force, but their assailant is not done yet. His legs scrabble for purchase at the sleek sides of the boat before getting a grip—and then, with a sharp jerk of his body, he throws all his weight to the side, rolling over in the water and taking the boat with him. 

For one agonizing moment, it seems like the boat will hold its weight and pull him back to center—but then the edge kisses the water, the sea pulls it in hungrily, and the boat flips over, sending the hunters into the drink.

Moonjumper releases the beast of a hunting boat and hangs in the water, glaring down at the other mers. Dares anyone,  _ anyone, _ to stop him. To tell him that he shouldn’t.

CC looks at him, and then she looks at the others. 

And they all turn to look at Bow. Bleeding and coughing and suffering, her life slowly draining out of her. 

CC looks up at Moonjumper, right in the angry red eye, and nods. Once. 

MJ turns with a sharp flick of his tail and watches the surface, watches a splashing, sputtering human drift into his line of sight. Mantis shrimp aren’t meant for long-distance swimming, but he’s not planning to take them quickly. He’s the patient sort (most of the time).

CC turns to the others—who are all panicking, go figure—and says to the Conductor, in a low, quick voice, “Go and get me some kelp. Now.”

He doesn’t question her. Just does what she asks. CC risks a glance upward to see what’s happening with the humans.

Moonjumper is now silently treading water below one of the hunters. They’re all trying to get back to their upturned ship,  _ now. _ In the water is  _ not _ where you want to be when messing with merfolk and they know it. 

The merman reaches up and delicately taps his claws on the unfortunate man’s ankle. 

The man stiffens with fear, then yells and thrashes and tries, desperately, to get to the boat. To his companions, it looks like a magician’s trick—one minute he is there, babbling with fear and reaching for them with an expression of utter terror twisting his face—the next, gone. Only spreading ripples to show where he was. 

CC shudders when she hears crunching bone, but she can’t let it wreck her focus, not now. “Grooves, come here. She’ll be more comfortable leaning against you.”

Grooves looks a bit uncomfortable and put-upon at this request, but he knows the value of a pup’s life, even if it used to be a human. Besides, Bow is alright, and she was instrumental in his escape from the aquarium. So he does what he’s told. 

Hattie is near-hysterical, darting in dizzying circles around Bow and talking at incomprehensible speeds:  _ “areyouokaydoyouneedanyhelpohmygodsthatlooksreallybadareyougonnadie-” _

The merwoman looks for Snatcher to calm her down, but he’s—

_ What _ is he  _ doing?! _

Snatcher is a purple streak headed for the surface. CC groans when she sees he’s also headed for the boat. “What does that bonehead think he’s doing?! Those are  _ hunters _ up there!  _ Mer hunters!” _ MJ is a human-eater, he can take care of himself just fine, but  _ Snatcher? _

Evidently, however, his target is not the hunters; he bypasses them all. No, Snatcher’s goal is the boat itself, and once CC can see what he’s planning, she has to begrudgingly agree that it’s the best thing to do here, to stop the hunters from getting away.

Snatcher swims under the boat, then turns and breaches the surface, rearing up over the boat with his claws extended. One of the hunters screams, sure that  _ this _ monster is the one who’s responsible for the puddle of red now floating on the surface of the water that in all likelihood came from their unfortunate comrade—but a delicate nibble on his ankle quickly assures him that’s not the case.

Snatcher crashes back into the water with his tail now looped around the boat just as Moonjumper sinks his claws into the next hunter’s bulky clothes and drags him underwater as well. (The hunters’ armor is meant to withstand mer claws, he’s found, but waiting for them to drown is rather boring, so he’s had to get creative thus far.)   
  
For his part, Snatcher repeats this several more times, all in the space of a few seconds. All the humans see is a purple streak flashing in and out of the water like a scaled ribbon, moonlight bouncing off his scales. Once he’s got about three loops around the boat, Snatcher constricts the coils he’s thrown around it, squeezing the thing like a stubborn barnacle. The wood protests, creaking loudly, solid metal beginning to crumple and bend. With a ferocious snarl, the merman crushes the boat like a soda can, steel rending and giving way with loud shrieks that set his teeth on end. 

The boat’s wooden bones crunch under his powerful tail. A quick flick of that tail then sends Snatcher back into the depths of the ocean, leaving the stunned hunters to contemplate the kindling floating peacefully on the dark ocean that had once been a ship. The entire process took about ten seconds altogether, and when they turn around, another one of their comrades is gone (the one that MJ pulled under while Snatcher was breaking the boat).

Despair is quick to set in. There’s two of them left, and they know they’re screwed. Alone in the ocean, with no boat or land in sight and a bunch of angry merfolk on their metaphorical tail—they’re as good as dead. The hunters exchange hopeless looks, flinching as another puddle of red bubbles to the surface.

All they can do now is wait.

~ ~ ~

Snatcher, for his part, dives down deep and coils up on the seafloor like a malevolent underwater snake, close (but not  _ too _ close) to Bow. Hattie is still swimming in circles around her friend, babbling nonsensically. CC has to wonder how she can talk so much without stopping to draw breath, but her amusement is outweighed by a sense of urgency—if she doesn’t stop the bleeding  _ now, _ Bow will die. The water around her is colored a sickly pink, and her eyes are glazed and half-lidded.

Conductor had returned with an armful of kelp a few seconds ago and now is hovering anxiously off to the side. CC wads up one of the long plants and stuffs it into the wound. 

The effect is instantaneous. Bow gives a ragged shriek and tries to jerk away from the pressure, her spine arching and tail going stiff. She’s too far gone to know that CC’s trying to help, can’t even recognize her anymore. She tries to push the kelp away, but CC’s hands are firm. Hattie is crying, trying to tug her hands away, but Snatcher comes up behind her and carefully lifts her away. 

“Stop it, stop it, you’re hurting her!” she sobs, reaching back for Bow. “You’re hurting her, please, please stop!”

Snatcher doesn’t let her go, but he wraps his arms around her and holds her close, pressing her head into his chest so she doesn’t have to watch or listen. 

“I know it’s terrible to watch, but CC knows what she’s doing,” he murmurs, running a clawed hand through the child’s hair. “The pressure hurts because she’s trying to stop the bleeding. Bow doesn’t know what’s happening right now. We just have to let CC handle it.”

It’s not like this is pleasant for him, either. It’s not pleasant for anybody, watching a merpup cry and beg for mercy. It’s not pleasant for Conductor or Grooves, doing their best to help despite not knowing what to do. It’s not pleasant for Snatcher, having a pup of his own; the similarities are too close for comfort. It’s certainly not pleasant for CC, having to ignore Bow’s desperate pleas and cause her pain even though she knows it’s the only thing that will save her. 

It’s not pleasant for the hunters, either; for as that ragged, breaking cry echoes throughout the roiling ocean, the monster below them stiffens and his pupils narrow. 

His instincts are telling him to  _ protect,  _ but he doesn’t understand it, has never even considered the possibility of being a father, and he cannot go to Bow right now (no matter how much he wants to, and he  _ does _ want to,  _ so badly); _ but that coiled, taut energy in his chest has to go somewhere, and it tells him to break the humans that hurt the girl so dear to him. 

No more coy tapping at the heel anymore; now Moonjumper wraps his clawed hand around the nearest ankle and tugs  _ hard,  _ letting his considerable weight carry them both downward. With a muffled shriek, the hunter is dragged under the surface, leaving one up above.

The leader, as it turns out. Isn’t fate artistic?

_ Good, _ Moonjumper thinks savagely as he plummets towards the seabed. _ The others die, but he  _ suffers. 

He slams the human into the sand, knocking whatever air the unfortunate human managed to inhale out of him. Drowning would be too easy a death for him…what to do, choices, choices…

The neck, MJ decides, it’s got all the important stuff in it. His markings glow feverishly in the dark ocean, multicolored light bouncing off his teeth, which are bared in an expression that manages to convey both pure, poisonous joy and vicious, unyielding rage. The hunter holds his hands in front of his face (like that will help) and MJ is considering playing cat-and-mouse with him just a bit more when another awful scream shoots through the water, tapering off into desperate sobbing. 

Moonjumper lets out an unholy shriek in response, face twisting in rage and pain, and he snaps his head forward and tears the man’s throat out with his teeth. 

It’s that quick. 

In a blind rage, and with those wretched protective instincts clawing at the inside of his skull, he rips a few more pieces from the man and devours them before gaining a bit more of a hold on himself and turning a burning eye to the surface. 

He can eat this one later. He’s eaten two already, and he wants to make sure there’s room for this last human. 

The one who shot his pup. 

He recognizes that ugly face, once leering like a mask, now made uglier by fear. Moonjumper saw him lift the harpoon to his shoulder, aim it, down into the water, at the shimmer of blue scales. He had watched, paralyzed, too slow to understand or yell for Bow to move, as the gleaming, jagged arrowhead had slid through the water, parting it, and sliced a wound in her side. 

He had tasted her blood in his gills and heard her broken voice—and lost all control. 

And it was  _ this human’s  _ fault. 

His fault.  _ He _ shot Bow. He hurt her. She’s dying. Bow is  _ dying _ because of this man. 

“So help me gods,” Moonjumper snarls, his claws scraping along the rocks with ominous  _ shiiick  _ noises, staring at that bulky silhouette above him, _ “So help me gods, _ even if she dies today, I will send you to join her.”

The last hunter splashes fruitlessly, tired limbs still trying to swim away, and knows a true, deep fear at the sight of that malevolent, burning eye in the rippling water below him, surrounded by flickering colors. 

He is afraid. 

(But if he knew what kind of death awaited him there, under the endless sea, he would have been much, much more afraid.)

_ And then he feels the first gentle scratch of the claw on his ankle…  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert "[chuckles] im in danger" meme here*


	3. cry and empty out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CC uses a needle, the leader of the hunters gets exactly what he deserves, and Bow cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl this one gets a bit trippy and there is some brief desc of a corpse/stitching up a wound so be careful with that! mj should probably be his own warning tbh
> 
> some style inspo from Wilder Girls at the end there, go read that book, it's great

CC has a bone needle for stitching up cuts from fishhooks and the like. Usually, those cuts are a few inches long, and she never saw one that was more than an inch deep. 

The slash in Bow’s side starts at a spot just below her arm, at the side of the pectoral muscle, and carves a diagonal line down towards her back, curving around her ribcage. The edges are ragged, torn by the serrated head of the harpoon, and the whole thing is at least a few inches deep, deep enough to see a flash of white bone. The water washes the blood away, but it clouds the space around the wound, making it hard to see. 

CC rips another piece of kelp into thin strands, then twists it with expert flicks of her fingers. Her expression is nothing short of steely.  _ Bow is going to live.  _

Threading her needle, she turns to Conductor, her face grim. 

“I’m sorry to do this to you,” she says in a low, steady voice, “but I need you to hold her down. She needs to be still for this.”

Stitching wounds is neither easy nor fun for anyone involved. CC has no time or energy to soothe Bow; she is running out of time, and her focus needs to be absolute if Bow is going to live. 

It breaks her heart a million times over, but she keeps quiet and deftly sews the gash closed, even though Bow’s struggles redouble in intensity, trying everything she can to get away from these new stings of pain—but no matter what she does, she is simply not strong enough to get Conductor’s hands off her shoulders. 

It hurts him too, not even just to watch her suffer but having to  _ actively hold her down _ and keep her where she is; even though she begs him with pain-foggy eyes to let her go, he knows she can’t really see him. Bow is well past the point where recognition is possible; pain and blood loss have addled her senses. 

When she’s too tired to scream any more, Bow cries. CC does not listen to the words she says. 

(“Please,” Bow whispers as the final stitch is pulled tight. 

“Please,” she cries as CC wraps cool kelp leaves around the burning wound. 

“Please, please, please,” she begs when Conductor lifts his hands from her shoulders and CC moves back for a moment, closing her eyes and gathering her composure once again like ragged scraps of fabric in a fist.)

She is a mother at heart, and Bow is a pup. No matter if the pain she had to endure saved her life; the terrible cries and pleas it had torn from her will haunt CC for a very long time.

Risking a glance at Snatcher, she notes that his hands are clamped solidly over Hattie’s earfins, and his own are pressed flat against his skull. Bow sobs voicelessly, quiet wheezes and hitched breath filling the space where nobody else can talk. 

CC buries her face in her hands for a long moment, then exhales sharply. She starts to reach for Bow, to pick her up, but Conductor intercepts her and Grooves picks the pup up instead. 

“Ye’ve done enough,” he says, voice a solid rumble. “The lass’ll be fine. Ye need a rest.”

CC would protest, but she can’t. Bow will live. Bow will recover. Now it’s time for the true enormity of what almost happened—what  _ did _ happen—to hit all of them. She buries her face in Conductor’s chest and starts to cry, as quietly as she possibly can. He wraps his arms around her in return.

Hattie lifts her head and stares blankly at Bow, curled up and exhausted in Grooves’s arms. Then she suddenly blinks and pipes up with,

“Hey, where’s MJ?”

~ ~ ~

Where indeed. 

Moonjumper is in the middle of the  _ very _ arduous process of removing the liver from the abdominal cavity without puncturing it. A delicate organ, but delicious if eaten properly.

Even from a distance, his delight is obvious. The marks on his back and shoulders and face glow vividly in the oncoming gloom as a cloud passes over the moon, and his smile slices a white slash in the murky pink-red water. 

He’s also got this weird nagging feeling that he’s supposed to be doing something right now, something important—but that can wait.

It can always wait.

At times like this, Moonjumper is at his best and his worst. The rush that he gets from the bloodlust and the adrenaline is incredible, but it comes from dragging up a deep-seated pain, like fishhooks catching at the ragged edges of emotional wounds that he’s beginning to suspect will never heal over.

The blood in his gills and under his claws and misting around his head takes him back, way back, back to being a scared teenager in a glass box, cloudy white water and vague, distorted shapes with their hands pressed up against the walls. It takes him back to steely eyes, cruel curved edges, and the light glinting off the

_ edge of a harpoon _

Harpoon? No, not a harpoon, it was surgical instruments, pointed scalpels, kitchen knives. Sharp silver points, smooth-edged, hanging delicately over his face. Pointing carefully into his right eye.

_ And he can’t stop it, he can’t stop the knife as it gently, softly severs the optic nerve, carves a burning hole into his thin face, and he screams and screams as fireworks go off in his head; there’s a gloved hand holding his jaw in place tightly enough to crack it and he can’t get away, he can’t get it  _ away from him—

He snaps back into himself with a mouthful of shredded organ matter. The ruined corpse holds only the barest traces left to indicate it was ever a human, for which he allows himself a certain measure of grim satisfaction. 

A hunter, he remembers, his mind coming back. His vision is narrowed by the bloody fugue, telescoped so it’s only him and the dead human, and nothing else. Shut everything else out, nothing else matters except making it  _ suffer. _ He swallows the meat in his mouth and glares sullenly at the corpse.

A hunter. It deserved to die. It and all its companions. That’s right, it’s starting to come back now; there were three more, and he ate two of them—left the other for later. Explains why he’s so full, more so than he’s been in a while. Moonjumper pats his belly and smiles, just a trifle smug under all the bloodlust. He’s going to rub this in Bow’s face when he gets back. She doesn’t like him eating humans, the little brat, never lets him have a full meal anymore. It’s not like they don’t deserve it—

_ Bow. _

The equivalent of the emotional whiplash registered here, for a human, would be if you are strolling down the sidewalk on a gloriously sunny day, eating a donut and thinking about how great that first date went, and you turn to wave to some friends on the other side of the road, and suddenly you fall directly into an open manhole. Moonjumper snaps from hazy bloodthirstiness coupled with vague annoyance to sudden, all-consuming worry in the span of less than a second. 

Almost immediately, it’s joined by guilt, for forgetting all about her and  _ enjoying _ himself while she might be dying, which is just—a  _ fantastic  _ combination—and he wants to hate her, so much, for making him feel this way, but gods damn it all, if Bow died while he was just sitting over here tearing into her killers—no. No, that’s not, not allowed.  _ No. _

Moonjumper jolts off the seabed and shoots furiously in the direction of his family (and his mind catches on that word, _family,_ but he’s been spending so much time with the pups lately and they’re making him soft, _he knows they’re making him soft),_ heart suddenly pounding crazily in his chest.

What is he going to do if the unthinkable has happened?

_ What am I going to do if Bow is dead? _

_ ~ ~ ~ _

_ The water is warmer than I thought it would be _

Hey Mom watch this

Mom Mom are you watching

Mom stop reading and look

_ She’s laughing at me _

_ She’s wearing her sunglasses with the purple stones _

_ I like those sunglasses I tried them on once they didn’t fit _

Okay alright I’m looking

What is it

_ Our cheeks dimple around our smiles _

I’m in the water look Mom see I did it

_ She claps for me I am so happy I made her smile  _

I knew you could I’m proud of you

I’m so proud of you Beauregard

_ I hate my name but now she looks sad and she’s going away where is she going _

Mom wait come back

_ I reach for her but when I do my side  _

_ hurts _

_ like fire and lightning _

_ Like the fourth of July _

_ There’s a firework going off in my side and the water is warm and it’s pink because there’s blood in my mouth why is there blood in my mouth _

_ I try to spit it out but the water’s rising now over my knees and my waist and my chest _

_ My shoulders and my head _

_ Glittering fish with pink and blue lights _

_ Pink and blue and pink and _

_ Blue and flashes of red hair _

_ I just want it to stop hurting _

_ Please don’t hurt me _

I won’t  _ he says and it’s true  _ I won’t I won’t

_ (Bow drifts, and drifts, and the pain goes away and lets her dream of that hidden softer side of a merman she knows very well. The pain goes somewhere else, and she forgets. _

_ For a little while.) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok hands up who didn't know/forgot that moonjumper has bioluminescent markings
> 
> if anything is unclear or there was something you didn't understand, slap it in the comments and i'll do my best to explain it to ya! or come talk to me at abyssal-glory on tumblr!
> 
> <3


	4. turn towards me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Snatcher gets tackled, Moonjumper worries, and CC is the only person with any brains in this stupid family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok FINE cuddling time

Moonjumper crests the lip of a stony ridge and is immediately hit with the smell of blood for the nth time tonight. 

Normally, the smell of blood makes him hungry, but this specific scent is making his stomach turn. He smelled it before, when the serrated edge of the harpoon sank its silver teeth into his pup’s side, and time has not improved his mental state any; the jolt of fresh fear is the same as ever.

Shit. He _hates_ being afraid. He’s sick of it, was sick of it fifteen years ago; and he swore he’d never fear another being again, mer or human.

Well, now here he is, scared out of his mind. All it took was, what? A little song and dance on the pier, a quick word here and there, compassion, acceptance, _what was it that made him feel this way?!_ He wants it gone, he wants to rip his traitorous heart out of his chest and shred it with his claws, he wants, he wants, he _needs_ Bow to be alive. 

Down the side of the ridge and towards the vague shapes at the bottom, streaking down the side like a “glow-in-the-dark centipede” (a small part of him wants to laugh at the nickname Bow gave him and another part wants to cry and he hates them both), thinking over and over, _you had better be alive, you had better be, because if you’re not I’m going to kill you myself._

  
  


“There he is,” Snatcher says roughly, pointing.

Conductor whistles. “Goin’ pretty fast, eh?”

“Does he know that Bow’s okay?” Hattie queries.

The silent realization of _oh shit, he doesn’t_ that passes around the group is very rapidly overshadowed (literally) by an extremely upset merman flying clear over their heads and slamming into Snatcher at about a million miles an hour.

_~ ~ ~_

_“WHERE IS SHE?!”_

Hattie is still trying to process how CC managed to dive across the sandpit and snatch her from Snatcher a literal half second before MJ plowed into him (later CC will claim it was the “mom instincts” and really who can blame her), when she suddenly realizes that MJ is not actually trying to be a dick, as per his usual state of being. His hands are braced on Snatcher’s bony shoulders, chest heaving with exertion and the bioluminescent markings covering his skin flickering sporadically, and he looks...not like himself.

He looks, Hattie decides, like that time when she got lost in a coral reef and a big shark almost ate her and Snatcher had to come and save her at the very last minute. His face looked like that, eyes blown wide and the muscles in his cheeks and forehead tense with protective panic.

It looks odd on MJ’s face; she’s so used to the trademark sneer. If this weren’t such a terrible situation, it’d almost be cute, how much he worries about Bow. He pretends not to, but when Hattie thinks back to their first disastrous meeting…

Well. He’s come a long way since then. 

Snatcher and MJ are both yelling at each other now, angry and puffed-up, and neither of them can be heard over the other; although it’s obvious that MJ is looking for Bow. The other merfolk watch them shout for a few seconds before CC sighs, rolls her eyes, and swims over.

“Honestly,” she huffs, plunging a hand into the impending fight, grabbing MJ by the scruff of the neck, and hoisting him out of the way. “I have enough on my plate right now to deal with; I don’t need a brawl right now.”

MJ does not calm down, however; twisting out of her grasp, he zeroes in on her instead. Before he can work himself into a frenzy—or, indeed, even say a word—CC grabs his shoulders and spins him in Grooves’s direction.

_“There._ There’s your pup. Now _calm down._ We all need to decompress after what just happened, and fighting won’t help with that,” she says in exasperation.

“I dunno, helps _me_ to blow off some steam sometimes,” Snatcher sniffs haughtily, brushing nonexistent sand off his shoulder. CC glares wicked daggers at him, ready to tell him off for being insensitive, when she notices something odd.

Grooves is in front of them now, having swum over when CC gestured in his direction, and now he cautiously extends his arms—and Bow, sleeping—towards the trio.

That is not what is odd. What’s odd is Moonjumper’s expression.

She has never seen him act or look like this before. The most common expression, for him, is a leer, and when he talks, nine times out of ten, he’s talking about food or being creepy or both. Now, though, he looks downright vulnerable, his eye wide and mouth hanging slightly open. His fingers curl and uncurl like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and—incredibly—they’re shaking slightly, tiny tremors running all the way up to his shoulders.

He reaches out and takes Bow into his arms.

_~ ~ ~_

_She is so small._

That’s the first thought that Moonjumper registers. She’s _so_ small. Her chest flutters with shallow breaths, as fragile as a bird’s. By contrast, the gash is big and ugly, stitches pulled tight to keep her life from leaking out of her again. There’s an ashen cast to her dark skin that makes something pull and twist in his chest. _It better not be my heart,_ he thinks dazedly, _I’ve had enough of that traitorous bastard._

She’s so small, he can cradle her in one arm, smooth a hand over her forehead with the other. _Whatareyoudoing, whatareyoudoing_ his mind shrieks, tells him to rip her apart, drag his claws over her face and tear it open, but instead his claws catch in her curly hair, run across her scalp, gently, so gently.

When he cups her cheek, her pulse twitches under his fingers, whole, real, and alive.

_Alive._

It’s like Moonjumper’s been holding a breath in this whole time, and now he gets to release it. All the tension leaks out of his shoulders like air out of a balloon, antennae sweeping back from his head. Relief runs cool and sweet through his veins, radiating outward from the center of his chest. 

That thing sitting just under his sternum controls him like puppet strings, makes him slip a hand behind Bow’s head and cradle it, gently turn her face into his chest. Even sleeping like this, she looks worn-out and tired, and really, he can’t blame her; he feels the exhaustion too, now that the adrenaline’s gone. 

Moonjumper, personally, could sleep for a year without issue. Several years. Sleep the big meal off, wake up and everything will be alright again, like this never even happened. 

Gods, he just wants to forget _everything._ Looking at the jagged red line in Bow’s side is making his overfull stomach churn uncomfortably. Squeezing Bow a little tighter, Moonjumper sighs deeply and lifts his head.

Every single mer is staring at him with the kind of expression one would normally wear if your serious, sensible friend suddenly decided to wear a chicken costume and jump up and down in the middle of the street while shouting obscene words at the top of their lungs. Moonjumper feels uncomfortably blushy under their wide-eyed gazes. Yes, he _knows_ this behavior is most unusual for him, so what?! He was scared, okay?

The only notable exception is Snatcher, who, upon closer inspection, is wearing the most smarmy, shit-eating grin that Moonjumper has _ever_ seen. His smile stretches from one side of his pale face to the other. No doubt about it, he looks surprised, too, but he also looks like it’s his birthday and he just got an entire platter of food as a present. 

Moonjumper gives him a warning look even as he feels a hot flush spread across his cheekbones and all the way down his neck. Trying for a scowl (which is severely offset by the sleeping pup in his arms), he snaps at the others, “Well? Are you all just going to sit around gawking at me?”

“Oi, what the hell,” Conductor mutters under his breath. “It’s like he flips a switch ‘n suddenly he’s back tae being a right bastard again.”

CC chooses to ignore this (although privately she agrees). Clearing her throat, she addresses the merfolk gathered with “alright, _so,_ I think we all can agree that what just happened was crazy, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m ready to drop. We’re going to bed.” And that is that. CC’s the boss.

The merfolk disperse, some of them grumbling or talking amongst themselves. A few drift over to check on Bow one more time, but a glare from Moonjumper sends them on their way again. Those odd instincts are back (did they ever really leave?) and even though it’s merfolk looking her way and not those _blasted humans_ (the mere thought of their wretched species makes him grind his teeth) those instincts wrap around the insides of his wrists and make him pull her closer, settling her in the crook of one arm and wrapping the other around her.

Dear gods, she is so small. Compared to _him,_ at least. All the pups are small; fragile sparrow bones, big eyes, and scales still soft and smooth, not rough and hardened from adulthood, or raised and puckered by scars.

Even as he thinks this, his gaze is pulled to the ugly raised wound on Bow’s side. It hurts to look at, a real, deep, inside hurt, but he can’t stop staring at it. The slash is harsh and uneven, slightly curved along the line of her ribcage. Now that he’s close, he can see how deep it cut. All the way to the bone. 

Suppressing a shiver, Moonjumper turns and skitters away from the cliffs. He has several little nooks set around the seabed that he can go to whenever he wants to be left alone (which is almost always), and since he knows now that Bow is _awful_ at hiding under sand quickly, that leaves one of his caves as the only logical solution.

The one closest to them will work. It’s small, relatively uncluttered (save for a few trinkets), and, most importantly, it has only one entrance. 

Already, he’s wondering how he’s ever going to sleep. He’s certain that he’ll never sleep again, no matter _how_ tired he is.

_Damn it all, you idiot,_ he thinks as vehemently as possible at Bow. _You’ll be lucky if I ever let you leave my sight again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think we, as a fandom, are collectively sleeping on feral tsundere moonjumper


	5. whisper over the screams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Moonjumper worries, and Bow is soft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more dad moonjumper for your dad moonjumper needs
> 
> also mj is very touchstarved lmao who'da thunk

Moonjumper’s eye is burning from staring at the opening of the cave.

The entrance stares back, a flat disk of rippling light. Every time a shadow passes over the sand outside, he goes rigid, a wave of tense energy rippling up through his body.

It’s always just fish. But their shadows are sleek and pointed, distorted by the silvery moonlight filtering through the rippling water, thin lines of their fins jutting away from their bodies like fishing rods hanging over the side of a boat. Pointed tails become sharp, gleaming metal, jagged edges, 

_ her blood clouds the water a murky pink and the taste of it—he can  _ taste _ it, it’s in his _ mouth, _ in his gills—the taste of it hurts something deep and small and unused in his chest _

When he relaxes, he can feel his heartbeat in his palms. 

His palms, which are resting on Bow.

She is asleep on him, loose and relaxed on his stomach. Her head rests just below his sternum (perhaps she is listening to his heartbeat, and  _ oh,  _ if the traitorous thing in question doesn’t flutter when the thought crosses his head), hands curled into loose fists like a sleeping infant. She cried so hard when CC stitched her wound that she still makes little gasping noises in her sleep, snuffling and coughing every once in a while. Every cough makes her face momentarily twist with pain when it pulls at the wound and Moonjumper worries that she’ll wake up; when he carefully runs his claws through her curly hair (so,  _ so _ carefully; it feels almost wrong, having his long, sharp claws near the soft skin of her scalp, but the ease and tug of the hair through his fingers calms his nervous pulse) her face relaxes back into the pull of sleep, and he breathes relief.

_ Relief. _

_ I hate you, I hate you for making me feel this way, _ Moonjumper thinks at her, scowling down at the top of Bow’s curly dark head.  _ I hate you for making my heart do these things, I hate you for that smile the purple idiot sent my way, I hate that I KNOW what that smile means, I hate all of this, I hate, I hate— _

Bow snuffles in response and leans her forehead against his arm. 

That warm feeling jumps to the surface again and Moonjumper groans. All of this is so  _ wrong, _ goes against everything he’s taught himself; the tingling, buzzing feeling in his palms and his arms and abdomen, any part of him that touches her or  _ anyone, _ is a strong indicator of that.

_ No touching. _ That was his rule. Numero Uno.  _ No touching of any kind. _

_ The hand on his jaw squeezes tight enough to crack the bone, fingers pinching his cheeks to hold him in place, rubber-gloved fingers poking, prodding, nipping at him like curious fish and he can’t, can’t, can’t move— _

Bow stirs and murmurs and cracks one sleepy eye open, the barest sliver of brown iris showing through, still foggy with pain and dreams. Moonjumper shifts, readying himself for the questioning that is sure to follow, but all she does is stare blearily at his arm, mere centimeters from her face, before tilting her head forward and

_ kissing the inside curve of his elbow _

and going back to sleep with a sigh.

A sentimental, childish gesture; holding no more meaning than “I’m okay with this, I’m safe with you, this is fine”, but there’s more to it than that when it comes to him, and for the second time today heat rushes into Moonjumper’s face, a bright pink blush suffusing the pale blue flesh and turning it a truly exquisite shade of purple. As the blush spreads to his neck, his bioluminescent markings light up in response, from his forehead all the way down to his shoulders, flickering, strobing pink and blue lighting up the inside of the cave.

He can see the thought coming like a bullet train headed towards a lone person on the tracks, and he tries to crush it, quell it, tamp it down, lock it up before it can hurt him—

_ Shut up, _ screams his head.

_ I love you, _ whispers his heart.

_ No! _ his head wails.  _ NO! _

_ My baby. I love you, _ his heart croons.

Moonjumper’s head rings from how loudly it protests everything, all of this, dredges up years and years of bad experiences, pain and sorrow and fear, throws it all back in his face…

…but his heart says  _ shhh, _ quiets the memories and places his fingers at the nape of her neck, cupping it in his palm and running the pads of his fingers over the soft, fine hair there.

_ Kill her!  _ the head cries.  _ She’s a human! _

Sink the claws in and  _ tear. _ Rip the soft skin apart, spill the lifeblood. It would be so easy.

But he doesn’t. All he does is tuck a curl behind her ear.

His heart beats in his palms where they rest on Bow’s back, on her cheek, beats a steady tattoo against the tips of his fingers, pulses steady warmth through his chest and shoots waves of fondness all the way up to his face. He’s smiling.

_ I love you, I love you, I love you. _

_ I’ll never let you go.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk man everybody always calls snatcher out on being a tsundere but considering this mj's background specifically for this au i'd say he's the bigger tsundere here
> 
> also hey we got the four-letter "L" word finally yaaaay C:


	6. a little song and dance on the pier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bow wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long Ass Chapter this time bois
> 
> many much introspection

Bow wakes up.

Normally, waking up is a quick endeavor—eyes snap open, jump out of bed, run down the stairs hollering at the top of her lungs while Mom groans and shoves her pillow over her head—but now the process of waking is slow and sticky, like getting dragged through an underwater trench and trying to claw her way out of the clouds of silt.

“Underwater” pulls at something in her head.  _ Underwater. _ Merfolk. Tails. Yes.

_ You do this every day, Hernandez, _ Bow scolds herself. Every day she wakes up confused and panicky, wondering where her room went and why she’s underwater, and every day she wants to smack herself for being dumb.

But this is new, this soft thing she’s laying on, it’s not sand or silt or even kelp leaves like usual, it’s  _ soft, _ and it’s warm and it’s got a heartbeat—

_ It’s ALIVE.  _

_ The thing that I am laying on is alive. _

It scares her less than it should. Maybe she fell asleep on a lonely whale or Hat roped her into another cuddle pile with Snatcher, maybe she’s still dreaming and all she needs to do is open her eyes…

_ Or maybe, _ Bow thinks numbly, as she cracks her eyes open and a very familiar face comes into focus,  _ maybe I fell asleep on Moonjumper. _

_ ~ ~ ~ _

_ Bow’s feelings on Moonjumper were…mixed. _

_ She nicknamed him the “Blue People-Eater” a while back, among other things. Like the song, “Purple People-Eater.” Of course, when she saw that he blushed a deep pink, which turned his blue skin purple, she renamed him “Purple” to fit the song better (once she’d stopped laughing, that is).  _

_ Moonjumper does not like humans. He barely tolerates his fellow merfolk; while humans are at the very top of his shit list. It’s not subtext; he told her this. He told her every day. _

_ “Don’t think that I’m refraining from eating you because we’re  _ friends _ or anything,” he would hiss under his breath, as if there was any danger of Bow mistaking him for her friend. “I’m only holding myself back from devouring you because there’s so many people here, and it’d be bad for Snatcher’s pup to watch the messy carnage that would ensue.” _

_ “I  _ hate _ humans,” Moonjumper would say, grinning widely,  _ oh Granny what big teeth you have. _ “I hate  _ you.”

_ She had believed it. For a while. _

_ ~ ~ ~ _

_ The bite (ha) had left the words, after a time. Moonjumper got used to Bow. She brought food with her. She didn’t touch his scars. She stayed away from him, just like he wanted. _

_ He still said “I hate you.” But sometimes Bow would catch him casting longing glances from the seabed when she would reach into the water, legs dangling off the dock and palms submerged to scratch the top of Hattie’s or Mu’s head, and later even some of the older merfolk. She didn’t dare touch Moonjumper, though. He hated her. He said.  _

_ That’s what he said. But, Bow realized later, probably later than she should have, that’s not what he  _ meant.

_ It was a slow realization, not an all-at-once one. He still wore the mask, played the charade, snarled and snapped and blustered the way he was “supposed” to. Because he felt like he had to. _

_ But Bow had known him too long, and even though she was still terrified of him, she knew his tells. She knew what humans had done to him. She could understand his anger, and the confusion that he suffered now. _

_ To preserve his own sanity, Moonjumper had taken on the mindset of “all humans are evil” and wore it like his mask, wore it with such certainty that it seemed like it had always been there. He never gave them a chance to explain themselves, when they tumbled off their boats or slipped on rocky shores, and fell into his waiting claws. Never gave them a chance to shatter the worldview that had kept him safe and sheltered from hurt. _

_ But now, here was a human who he could not kill, was forced to look at and listen to, invading the ocean where he lived and reaching into the lives of the people he surrounded himself with—yes, of course he was angry. _

_ Bow had done it. She had cracked his mask. He wasn’t ready to be hurt, but she didn’t hurt him. _

_ ~ ~ ~ _

_ There came a day when an entire lifeboat of loud, rude fishermen tipped over, and by the time he was finished with them, Moonjumper was so full he got the hiccups. He was sleepy, too; the hunger finally gone and nothing panging at his insides or clawing at his brain. _

_ Bow had been lying on her stomach on the edge of the dock, head over the edge and fingers trailing in the water, when something soft pushed itself into her palm. _

_ She smiled, thought it was one of her friends asking for pets. Of course, she obliged.  _

_ After a moment, a deep thrum had made the water ripple. Bow’s smile widened. It was rare that she heard one of them purr, and she considered it an accomplishment when she could make it happen.  _

_ The purring was deep and resonant; probably an adult— _

_ Her hand touched an antenna.  _

_ Unthinking, she stroked the base of it, gave it a gentle scratch, and the purring increased in volume, and then she realized.  _

Antennae. Only one merman she knew had antennae. 

_ Bow gave an involuntary yelp and jerked her hand back, pushing herself back from the edge of the dock and scrambling backwards. Almost immediately, Moonjumper’s clawed hands slammed into the edge of the dock and pulled him up above the water, wild-eyed and fins flared with alarm. His teeth were bared in a snarl, sending a thrill of the purest terror shooting down Bow’s spine.  _

_ “What is it?” he barked, heedless of her sudden fear. “What’s going on?!” _

_ “Sorry!” Bow yelped, scooting back frantically back on her hands. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know it was you!” _

_ “What the bloody  _ hell _ are you on about?” Moonjumper snapped, pulling himself fully up onto the dock. Bow squeaked. He loomed above her, blotting out the sun and huffing sharply through his teeth like an angry dragon. “Is there somebody after you?” _

_ “...after me?” Bow said in a small voice, after weighing whether it was safe to talk.  _

_ “Well, why  _ else _ would you panic like that? Is one of those idiots in the striped shirts back? Where is he?” Moonjumper snarled, head sweeping back and forth as he moved right past her and stood at the beach end of the dock.  _

_ Bow planted a hand on her chest and took several deep breaths. “Madre de Dios,” she muttered under her breath. “You scared me something awful there.” _

“Me?!” _ Moonjumper exclaimed, turning back toward her. “What do you mean,  _ I _ scared you?” _

_ Bow stared. “You know, you—you hate to be touched! I-I didn’t know it was  _ you _ I was petting, I thought you would be mad at me!” _

_ His shoulders dropped. With a sigh, he turned and slipped back into the water, though his upper body remained above the surface. Resting his elbows on the edge of the dock, he dropped his chin onto his arms and regarded Bow with an emotion flickering behind his half-lidded eye that she couldn’t put a name to.  _

_ “I wasn’t trying to scare you,” he said slowly. _

_ Bow sat up so she was cross-legged and facing him.  _ Yep, just a normal conversation between a human kid and her homicidal psycho murderfish friend,  _ she thought sardonically. _

_ “Well,” she said after a long, thoughtful pause, “do you like being petted or not?” _

~ ~ ~

Bow holds her breath and waits for Moonjumper to notice she’s awake and yell at her for falling asleep on him—but, upon closer inspection, he is also sound asleep, breathing quietly through parted lips and eyes closed. Bow peers closer and notices the gentle upturn of his lashes resting on his cheeks, which is good; when his eyes are squeezed tightly shut, it usually indicates a nightmare, and waking him up from  _ those _ is terrible for everybody involved. She reaches up to pat his chest sympathetically.

She really does feel bad for him, and all the crap that humans put him through. It’s been a ride, trying to convince him that she doesn’t mean him or his weird patchwork family any harm just because she happens to be a human, but it paid off in the end.

Case in point: this…Situation-with-a-capital-S.

Bow had automatically assumed that the ill-tempered, irascible merman would yell at her for falling asleep on him, but now that she’s more awake, she’s able to process questions like  _ why would he let me fall asleep on him in the first place? _ and  _ how long have we been here like this? _ and of course the crazy fact that both his arms are loosely wrapped around her, keeping her pinned to his chest.

“Um,” she finally tries, more confused than she’s ever been in her  _ life. _ “Okay?”   
  
No response from him. Of course. Now would be a good time to sneak away, just in case, but when she starts to carefully wriggle out from under his arm, his face contorts and he growls, low and angry. Bow freezes in place, which only affords him the opportunity to tighten his grip and pull her back to him.

_ What the heck, _ Bow yell-thinks,  _ what the actual flying flipping heckaroonie. _ This is not the Moonjumper she knows, Moonjumper doesn’t do long, squeezy hugs or…or  _ tenderness. _ His claws are sheathed and his fangs are away and the lines in his face are smoothed by sleep, making him look younger than usual. More human, she supposes, even though that’s a terrible comparison that he would (possibly literally) kill her for. Less...toothy.

It’s kind of nice.

Scratch that, it’s _really_ nice. Bow lets her eyes drop half-closed and rests her chin on her folded arms. If Moonjumper isn’t going to throw her off when he wakes up, she could honestly fall asleep here again. Though she has to wonder why he’s acting this way, it’s so weird, did something happen…?

Already back on her way to sleep, Bow stretches.

_ Oh yeah, _ she thinks distantly as her left side shrieks with burning, searing, scorching pain, sending fire shooting through her ribcage and lancing red-hot spears up to her face,  _ that was what happened. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> emotionally constipated merpeople everywhere my gods


	7. sometimes love is true (but only when it brings me to you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some words are exchanged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LAST CHAPTER GUYS AHHHH
> 
> hope yall like it! this one's the sappiest one yet tbh

Moonjumper held her.

She remembers this as the haze of pain spreads across her chest and abdomen like fingers of lightning, electric rods of pain lighting up her brain and nerves, a hot, smeary sort of pain.

Bow remembers how it felt.

_ Arm around her shoulders, stiff like he didn’t know how. (He probably didn’t.) Torso curled over her in a protective hunch, shoulders rounded forward, taut, tense, and angry. _

_ Not at her, for once. Angry  _ for _ her. Angry at the people who hurt her. _

_ It was nice. Even though it hurt and she was scared and she didn’t want to die before she could say goodbye to her mom, it was nice to know somebody cared about her that much. _

Moonjumper had held her and it was nice. It  _ is _ nice.

Even if her skin comes apart and her blood all leaks away and her brain explodes from the pain like a big firework, it’s nice to know that she was able to crack his mask enough for him to let himself do this. She did this one good thing for someone she cares about.

The logical part of her brain tells her that she isn’t going to die now if she hasn’t already. The rest of her wants somebody to rub her back and sing to her.

~ ~ ~

Moonjumper wakes up because Bow is moving.

Not, in and of itself, a surprise—she’s a pup. Pups are wriggly. He’s learned this through many hours of toil trying to catch them; it’s like trying to catch a bar of wet soap.

What’s getting to him is the fact that she’s  _ on _ him. And he knows it’s her, because she’s done this before, sprawled out all over him like she’s trying to take up more space than is physically possible just because she can. Because he’s not allowed to eat her now. (Not that he ever was,  _ thank you, CC, _ but now he’s even more not allowed because she’s a merpup and  _ God help him _ he cares about her.)

_ Eugh,  _ what time is it? Why is Bow awake and thrashing around and…and sleeping on his stomach? She shouldn’t even be here, she should be  _ resting _ after those bedamned hunters came in and—

_ The hunters. _

Moonjumper’s eye snaps open, painting the inside of the cave awash with dim red light. His eye glows like a searchlight in the dark as all of his markings light up in response to his sudden distress.

Bow should _ not _ be awake right now. It’s the middle of the night, there hasn’t been enough time for her to heal any, even  _ with _ the boost that the dregs of magic in her amulet afforded her. One look tells him that he’s unfortunately correct; his pup is curled up in a ball, both arms wrapped as tightly as they can around her ribcage and face contorted in a rictus of pain. His hands jump off her shoulders and hover over her; almost afraid to touch her for fear that he’ll break her more.

Hesitantly, Moonjumper rests a glowing hand on her back. (Sweet gods above, his palm covers the entire lower half of her back; she’s  _ so much smaller  _ than him.) Bow shivers all over and breathes through her mouth, deliberately timing her breaths and squeezing her arms in measured bursts. 

_ I don’t know what I’m doing,  _ he thinks hysterically as he begins to stroke her back in slow, soothing circles, resting his free hand on her head. It should be anyone else here, CC or Grooves or even Snatcher, even  _ Conductor, _ but no. There’s nobody else but him. Bow doesn’t  _ have _ anyone else but him right now.

Well, shit. Moonjumper is the  _ worst _ possible choice for this kind of thing. He’s not the type to do “kind” or “tender,” that’s all CC’s thing, as the de facto leader-slash-parent of the group. He’s not a parent, not a  _ father, _ he can’t be! Not to this human pup who he’s supposed to hate. Who he  _ should  _ hate, by all accounts. 

Except he doesn’t. 

For the nth time today, Moonjumper curses his lousy, treacherous,  _ stupid _ heart for attaching itself to something so weak and fragile and—and  _ small.  _ Every time Bow’s face contorts in pain, his chest twists in response. He’s woefully underprepared for this, unsure as to how Bow will react upon waking up on his chest and how to make her pain go away (in truth, a part of him was foolishly hoping that Bow wouldn’t wake up at all, but that was unrealistic and he knows it). 

Moonjumper is not Bow’s father. She is  _ not _ his pup. But his silly, sentimental heart staked a claim on her that he cannot ignore, especially after… 

His cheeks flame suddenly with a deep blush as he remembers his last few thoughts before dropping off. 

…after he admitted, if only to himself, that he loved her. 

As if in response to the realization, Bow takes a deep breath and lets it out after a moment, still with her eyes squeezed shut. It’s her first real, full breath in a couple minutes; the pain must be ebbing. Moonjumper expects to feel panicky, since that means she’ll be asking more of her blasted questions (Bow asks questions like it’s going out of style, and it aggravates him to no end), but instead, all he feels is relief.  _ Good. The pain is fading. _

_ Damn you, heart, _ he thinks, but there’s no heat behind it, only a mild resignation and, yes, acceptance. His heart is a part of him, after all, so he has no one to blame but himself. And anyway…Bow uncurls slightly, still taking careful, measured breaths, and he rubs his thumb unthinkingly against her cheek…anyway, it’s not so bad. 

Bow turns her face into the touch as her muscles relax and her fingers unclench, though she leaves one hand covering the wound, and cracks one eye open slowly, then the other. Blinking hard, she carefully shifts from her side to her stomach so she can look at her friend better. Resting her chin on her arm, folded in front of her, she stares at him with big violet eyes. There’s a hefty pause as the light from the merman’s markings begin to fade, and then they both sigh deeply.

“Well,” Moonjumper remarks tartly, “Now that you’ve got all  _ that _ out of your system, let’s not do that again, hmm?” 

Bow snorts, though only a little, and rolls her eyes. “Gimme a break, I woke up all confused and forgot what happened yesterday.”

_ What happened yesterday.  _ The phrase hangs in the water between them. Bow’s smirk fades and she averts her eyes. 

“Yes,” Moonjumper says carefully, running the tips of his claws through her hair absently. “About that.”

“Oh gods, what am I gonna tell my mom?” Bow moans, dropping her head so her forehead is pressed against the skin of Moonjumper’s solar plexus. He tries not to tense at the sudden, unprovoked contact. “She’ll see this at some point even if I  _ don’t  _ tell her about it, and then she’ll want to know what the camp did to me, and then she’ll try to sue the camp and I’ll have to tell her the camp was fake and she’ll ground me for a year for lying to her and… _ gah,  _ I’m such an idiot!”

“Yes, you are,” Moonjumper says placidly, working out a snarl in one of Bow’s curls. “Do go on; it’d mean so much to me if you told yourself off so I won’t have to.”

“Yeah, you’d like me to give you less work, wouldn’t you,” she grumbles, still hiding her face in Moonjumper’s chest.

“You owe it to me.”

_ “You _ fixed me?”

That gives him pause. “...No, not exactly,” he admits. “CC and the others were the ones who put you back together.”

Bow lifts her head enough to give him a smug so-there grin. “So I don’t owe  _ you _ anything, then. But I’ll have to get CC something as a thank-you gift…maybe a necklace from the surface…? Does she like jewelry?”

“Slow your roll, there,” Moonjumper interrupts her before she can get too far into her thoughts. “I may not have healed you, but I  _ did _ prevent further harm from coming to you. I protected you, so you  _ do _ owe me.”

Bow pauses at that, lifting her head up more to stare at him with wide eyes. “You protected me…?”

Suddenly uncomfortable under the weight of her stare, he takes his hand off her head and scratches the back of his own, averting his eyes and hoping and praying that he isn’t blushing again. “Well…I’m no nursemaid, and I knew that CC had it under control, and I couldn’t really do much else at the time, so I…suppose I did, yes.”

Bow stares at him for a count of three, eyes flicking as she gazes at his face, trying to find signs of a lie. She looks vulnerable, even hopeful, trembling on the cusp of some important realization, but then something shrinks back behind her eyes and she blinks and looks away. The feeling of her laser-focused stare leaving him is a weight off his shoulders, but he misses it, instantly wants it back. 

“Har har,” she says, smiling again, a small, don’t-get-your-hopes-up smile. Directed not at him, but at herself. “You only did it for the meal, you big lug. I bet you ate all of the hunters, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Thought you felt softer than usual. But thanks, anyway. I know you don’t like helping humans, and I’m a human, so this was probably just a big inconvenience for—”

“No,  _ listen,” _ Moonjumper says, sitting forward and taking her face in his hands, desperate to make her understand. “I didn’t do it for me; I didn’t do it for the meal that it gave me. I wasn’t even thinking about that.”

Not at first, anyway. When the bloodlust comes down, it’s hard to keep track of what’s…

(Her face is small between his palms, skin soft and fragile, and a trembling heat fluttering under the edges of his hands where they’re pressed against her neck.)

…important.

Her eyes are big, a hesitant  _ something _ kindling, a spark of that hope he saw. He could step on it and snuff it out now and pretend that it was all a big joke, and maybe in a different time he would, before what happened yesterday. But he won’t, because that harpoon could have killed her, and she would have died, and he would have never been able to tell her all the words building up against the base of his throat, slamming into his ribcage.

“Why  _ did _ you do it, then?” she asks, hesitant, unsure. He can see that she doesn’t know if it’s a trick or not, and she’s trying to prepare for the worst.

Moonjumper exhales and leans forward, pulling her forward in the same motion, unable to stop himself from pressing his forehead against Bow’s. She makes a small noise of surprise, then goes very still, perhaps even holding her breath. He feels the same way, like the moment is so fragile, so precious and breakable, that if he moves or says the wrong thing, it’ll shatter and turn into sharp edges.

“I did it for  _ you,” _ he breathes, professing his weakness, his one great weakness of the heart. Oh gods, he’s such a fool, this is all going to end in tears one way or another. This was a mistake, but the words are spilling out now, and he can’t stop them. “I did it—I got so angry at them, and at everything, when I smelled your blood, and I—I  _ swallowed  _ it, I could taste it, and everything just got so...” He gulps and trails off.

Bow could have  _ died. His pup _ could have died.

_ Don’t start crying don’t start I hate you I hate you,  _ his head hisses. 

Bow’s certainly crying, her eyes still wide open and her lip trembling. His eye is closed, unable to look her in the face. Waves of shame and embarrassment wash over him; he’s almost nauseous, reeling under the unfamiliar feelings. 

Moonjumper does not feel  _ shame. _ He is proud of what he is, proud of being a man-eater, a beast, the monster that mothers warn their children against. But he is not proud of this, not proud of the hesitance he saw in Bow’s eyes.

How low can he fall? Rather, how low can she bring him? He’s supposed to be man's worst nightmares made flesh, yet here he is, curled up around a tiny once-human girl, cradling her face with his forehead pressed to hers,  _ choking back tears _ at the thought of losing her for good. Remembering the anger that had swept through him in pounding waves, that blinding, white-hot fury and the urge to make the hunters’ deaths hurt, to make them  _ suffer. _ Not wanting them dead for an easy meal, but because they hurt someone he  _ loves. _

“Don’t,” he says raggedly, folding around her. “Don’t ever…” He can’t finish the sentence.

Bow sniffles and puts her hands on either side of his face, mirroring him. “I won’t. Okay? I won’t. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“Don’t you ever leave me,” Moonjumper says with force, finding his words. “I’ll hunt your soul into hell to make you pay for it, you hear me?

“And don’t even  _ think _ about telling the others about this,” he adds, as an afterthought, pulling back to give her a stern look. Bow giggles wetly and wipes her nose.

“Okay,” she says, the word catching, and then she scoots forward and wraps her arms around his neck, tucking her head under his chin and snuggling close. After a moment of hesitation, he sighs and wraps his arms around her, one hand going to the back of her head and returning to carding through her hair. It’s a simple gesture, but it soothes him, and it seems to soothe her too.

There’s something so soft, so infinitely precious about the quiet thump of her heart beating against his clavicle. Moonjumper’s heart opens like a flower to the feeling of holding her close, because it feels right. It feels right enough to drown out his head yelling  _ wrong wrong wrong _ and the memories trying to surge back up. 

Could he say it to her? Would the words come out? He opens his mouth to try. “Bow, I…”

No, it becomes increasingly evident that he cannot say the four-letter “L” word yet. Not yet.

But soon. Soon.

“...don’t hate you,” he finally goes with, hoping she’ll understand that it means the same thing as the word he can’t say except to himself, in quiet, lonely moments. And now that it’s there, in his head, he realizes that he’s loved Bow for a while, more than either of them knew.

Judging by the little squeeze she gives him, she does understand.

“I love you, too,” she says, and she doesn’t laugh, because she knows how hard it is for him to be vulnerable like this. She’s the only one who  _ really _ knows, the only one who bothered to get close enough.

_ Cripes. _ This whole “fatherhood” business is going to be hard to get used to.

Moonjumper turns his head and kisses Bow’s temple. It’ll be okay. They have time. No hunter will come near  _ his _ pup ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy crap its finally over
> 
> im so happy :')
> 
> as always, comments are appreciated! i'm also making the tentative choice to take ahit fic suggestions from anybody who's willing to give me them, provided that it's understood that i might not write it if i don't vibe with it.
> 
> but i vibe with a lot of things in ahit, so fire em at me and we'll see where it goes!

**Author's Note:**

> :D


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